craigslist - American picker style finds
May 8, 2016 11:41:40 GMT -5
Thunder69, quartz, and 7 more like this
Post by Drummond Island Rocks on May 8, 2016 11:41:40 GMT -5
This story starts with a listing I seen pop up on craigslist for a specialty trim saw I have been looking for. The saws usually sell used for about $150 so when I seen the listing for $30 I jumped on it right away. When I showed up to pick up the saw I went through my normal routine of asking if there were any other equipment or rocks for sale. It turned out that this saw belonged to the sellers father and he said his dad had a warehouse that might have some other stuff. This is where it got a little sketchy. The warehouse was located on 8 mile road in a pretty bad area of Detroit. I normally would never follow someone to a location like this but I went for it. It turned out that the warehouse had no power, leaks all over the roof and had been left sitting for about 40 years untouched. He got a generator going and turned on a couple portable lights. This is when I got to see what his dads business was. It was a factory that was used to produce world war 2 anti aircraft search lights. There were 6 or 7 fully assembled lights all lined up that had tags saying they were made in 1942. The guy I talked to gave me a history lesson about the lights that made the whole trip worth it. I guess these lights were 800 million candle power and would light up an area that was 1 mile in diameter. A radar would give location and then these lights and the guns were manually moved to that specific location using math. After checking out all the light stuff we climbed up to a loft and sure enough there was another trim saw and a flat lap up there. He said he thinks there are tumblers and rocks at his dads house so he is supposed to get back with me if there are.
Here is the saw I originally went to get in the condition it was found.
This is the trim saw from the warehouse
This is the flat lap from the warehouse
just a little clean up and everything worked and all bearings are good
There was a 6" diameter SC wheel on the flat lap but I stuck an 8" diamond plate on it to make sure it would fit.
The specialty saw is a 10" saw that has limit depth of cut but is made to cut 90 degrees leaving no kerf for things like hearts and crosses. The 10" blade and arbor centered with the table is the key here.
This is the same view of the 8" saw showing the radius that would be left in the cut. This condition is even worse on normal 6" trim saws.
And last but not least this is what the search lights looked like including the portable generators that were also in the warehouse.
Thanks for looking
Chuck
Here is the saw I originally went to get in the condition it was found.
This is the trim saw from the warehouse
This is the flat lap from the warehouse
just a little clean up and everything worked and all bearings are good
There was a 6" diameter SC wheel on the flat lap but I stuck an 8" diamond plate on it to make sure it would fit.
The specialty saw is a 10" saw that has limit depth of cut but is made to cut 90 degrees leaving no kerf for things like hearts and crosses. The 10" blade and arbor centered with the table is the key here.
This is the same view of the 8" saw showing the radius that would be left in the cut. This condition is even worse on normal 6" trim saws.
And last but not least this is what the search lights looked like including the portable generators that were also in the warehouse.
Thanks for looking
Chuck
